List Volume 20Number 1 publication date:March 2007 Back Critical Computer Literacy and Schoolchildren’s Web-based Practices: A Case Study of Children’s Summer Computer Camp in a Rural Area     Author:Yuling Lin Research Article Download Based on critical pedagogy, this study designs a computer literacy course for a summer camp. Also, it examines how children in a rural area, especially indigenous children, learn to create personal webpage when they attended the summer camp. This study finds that computer literacy is a set of social practices. Most children from indigenous and low-income families use web homepages to link up with and speak to the outside world, and to transform their social status. This work acknowledges that children can become critically and culturally competent actors by exploring their social situations through critical literacy. They are able to examine ideological effects of mass texts, rewrite those texts and introduce the local culture in the form of web pages. This study suggests that the design of computer literacy is supposed to concern students’ condition and to choose the user-friendly software to children due to the ability of literacy influenced by learning situation. Also, it suggests that a course of critical computer literacy can help children develop five literacy competences and practices: (1) adopting multiple digital skills and techniques; (2) finding an individual voice; (3) examining ideological effects of cultural texts; (4) affirming one’s self and ethnic identity; (5) transforming social skills and social actions. Keywords: computer literacy, critical pedagogy, critical literacy, ethnic identity, Web-based practices Developing Initial Collaborative e-Learning Environments